Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "judge-kavanaugh"
Civil Rights Versus METOO: HEROES AND VILLAINS
In an earlier post (2/4/18), I contrasted the media-generated 2017 METOO movement to the 2016 women's movement, which was started by then unknown women. At one point in that post, I suggested that the women's movement had more in common with earlier civil rights and gay rights movements than with METOO, which was more like the Salem witch hunts or lynch mobs. In making that point, I noted that the leaders of the civil rights movement didn't take millions of dollars in hush money and then later whine about segregation. As I've continued to watch the destruction caused by the METOO witch hunt and having recently read an account of the civil rights movement, WALKING WITH THE WIND, by John Lewis, I'm even more certain that METOO is a witch hunt, not a civil rights movement.
Some of the differences between the fifties and sixties fight to end Jim Crow and the METOO movement are the same as those between that witch hunt and the current women's fight for equal pay, the right to choose, and the right to campaign for and win the highest offices in the land. Like the women's movement, the civil rights movement was not started by the media or celebrities. John Lewis, Rosa Parks, and Reverend Martin Luther King Junior became famous because of their work for civil rights. The media covered the movement only after it had started, and such celebrities as Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, and Mahalia Jackson participated in marches and provided financial support but were never the leaders. Also, although the murder of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old, handsome, black boy accused of whistling at a white woman, helped launch the movement, the focus was never on sex (unless you include FBI director Hoover's obsession with Reverend King's sexual behavior). At no time in his book does Lewis mention fighting to allow blacks and whites to marry in every state. Although he was still alive when the Loving case finally ended all laws against miscegenation, King did not participate in that fight. He was fighting to end segregation in housing in the North as well as the South and against poverty everywhere in 1967.
One of the most important differences between the civil rights activists of the fifties and sixties and the METOO whiners is the refusal of the activists to demonize the white racists who tormented them. As I tweeted to the somewhat unhinged Rose McGowan, Reverend King and Rosa Parks never called any of the bigots they were battling "monsters," a name she repeatedly uses to describe Harvey Weinstein. I had not read Lewis's book at that point and did not realize that one of King's rules of engagement was that the activists must fight social injustice, not individuals. Their fight was not personal. Although he was at times angry and disgusted, I don't recall Lewis expressing hatred toward the white men who beat him. He seems to understand that they too were victims of the racist Jim Crow system into which they were all born. He certainly understood how difficult it is for all of us to deal with change.
The civil rights movement was about uplifting the oppressed, not destroying the oppressors. Even when Lewis and other activists were beaten and tormented in public, and those attacks were seen on television, the people who beat them did not go to jail; usually, the victims of the beatings did. In fact, most of the physical assaulters of the civil rights activists were police officers. Even after we all understood that what those officers did was wrong and unlawful (and many understood that point at the time), none of them went to jail. The only criminals who were pursued in court and in the media by civil rights activists were those who actually killed people, like the murderer of Medgar Evers, who finally went to jail in the nineties. Because of the way the civil rights activists behaved, their oppressors could sometimes reform and make peace with them. Perhaps the most prominent example is the late Democratic senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd. He was once in the Ku Klux Klan and fought hard against the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in the mid-sixties, but in 2008, he supported half-black President Barack Obama, and one of his last acts before he died was to shout, "Shame!" "Shame!" to the racist, obstructionist GOP senators as he was being wheeled into the Senate chamber in early 2010 to cast one last vote supporting the healthcare bill.
Contrast the almost saintly, loving behavior of Lewis and the other civil rights activists to the vicious spitefulness and bullying of the METOO witch hunters. They celebrate the destruction of powerful men. They get off on sending an eighty-one year old, blind, black man to jail and causing other powerful men to lose their jobs and have their reputations destroyed. I recently had to change the channel when watching "Black Girls Rock." The originally unknown black woman (I still can't remember her name because she is clearly not the leader of this movement; blonde, white male Ronan Farrow and brunette, white female Gloria Allred, among others, are) whose movement the media and celebrities co-opted in part so they could lock up Cosby for having freaky sex with white women (the late Dick Gregory had some other theories in the book I just read, but I'm sticking with mine) was given an award at the event. In introducing her, the presenter bragged that she had taken down really powerful men. Hey, I can be spiteful, especially when dealing with white men (ask the two white male lawyers who recently tried to play me), but I know that destroying people, costing them their careers and their reputation, is not a positive trait. Why would a movement celebrate personal destruction? Why wouldn't they want to focus on the women who have been protected and the men who have been educated and reformed rather than how many powerful men have been destroyed? I'm spiteful enough to look forward to the time when the leaders of this movement will (hopefully) feel ashamed that they behaved so badly in 2017 and 18.
That shame may never come, however, because of the media's involvement. When a movement is generated by the media, it has the protection that civil rights activists never had. One of the most dangerous characteristics of this movement is the refusal of the media to criticize the behavior of the activists, which leads to fear among those critics (and they are rare) who are smart enough to know that the media can destroy them. Comedian Bill Maher, who was bold enough to be politically incorrect right after 9/11 (causing him to lose his job as the host of an ABC show ironically called "Politically Incorrect"), always genuflects to the witch hunters before he criticizes them. He always says that he believes women should be heard and is against rapists, blah, blah, blah. A friend of mine (a white mother of mixed race sons) who was helping me take on some METOO supporters on Facebook had to begin one comment with the apologetic statement, "I'm not blaming the victims." Why not? The civil rights beating victims were thrown in jail and blamed for causing trouble; they were called Communists and outside agitators. You want to talk about blaming victims, read about the young black boys (one of them twelve) who were killed by cops or wannabe cops. And read or watch the media coverage of the BlackLivesMatter movement, a slightly less saintly, modern version of the civil rights movement, that rose up in response to the killings by cops of unarmed, mostly young black males.
The primary difference between the civil rights activists and the METOO whiners is in the character of the participants. To paraphrase Trump, I like my heroes to be brave and noble. I don't like cowards, whiners, and demonizers. The civil rights activists were not cowards. They were willing not only to lose their careers for their cause but to die for it. Dr. Ford is the latest METOO "hero" who wanted to attack someone else's good name without exposing her own. She wanted to tell her story but remain anonymous because she didn't want her comfortable life disrupted. The only differences between her and one of my least favorite people (I like her more than I do Trump, Allred, Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and Judges Thomas and Kavanaugh), that drunk whiner Emily Doe, are that she's better educated (so far) and apparently not a sloppy drunk. If Dr. Ford couldn't stand the heat, she should never have entered the kitchen.
I could never have been a civil rights activist. I'm not physically violent, but I believe in hitting back verbally when I'm attacked. I could never be beaten, called names, and jailed while remaining quiet or singing "We Shall Overcome." I admire and thank John Lewis and all of the many unknown heroes who took the beatings and went to jail so that I could vote and live a little freer. I'm proud to say that I also could never be a METOO, whining witch hunter. I think too clearly and am too much of a lone ranger (without Tonto) and a Mary, Mary, quite contrarian to join a lynch mob. I'm also "brave" and contrary enough to take on the witch hunters now when it's unpopular to do so. Of course, unlike the Democrats, I know how to use the weapons I have. As a black woman from the working class who was pawed by white men and witnessed the effects of a brutal rape (not sexual assault or harassment, pussies, but rape), I can take these whiners down. My biggest weapon is this one: Black women voted for the sane white woman while white women voted for the insane white man. If white women had voted the way black women did, Hillary Clinton would be selecting the judges, and the world leaders of the UN would not be laughing at us.
METOO whiners, there are children in cages because white women voted for an insane sexual assaulter to stop the browning of America. Until you white women figure out how to vote, sit down, shut up, fall back, move to the back of the bus, and let the black women, who know how to vote, drive. And, oh, tell your daughters to prepare for the backlash that your vicious, destructive movement will cause in the not so distant future. Finally, if you're feeling oppressed, if you think your life has been difficult because some powerful, predatory men told you nasty jokes or looked at your boobs or under your dress, read WALKING WITH THE WIND.
Some of the differences between the fifties and sixties fight to end Jim Crow and the METOO movement are the same as those between that witch hunt and the current women's fight for equal pay, the right to choose, and the right to campaign for and win the highest offices in the land. Like the women's movement, the civil rights movement was not started by the media or celebrities. John Lewis, Rosa Parks, and Reverend Martin Luther King Junior became famous because of their work for civil rights. The media covered the movement only after it had started, and such celebrities as Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, and Mahalia Jackson participated in marches and provided financial support but were never the leaders. Also, although the murder of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old, handsome, black boy accused of whistling at a white woman, helped launch the movement, the focus was never on sex (unless you include FBI director Hoover's obsession with Reverend King's sexual behavior). At no time in his book does Lewis mention fighting to allow blacks and whites to marry in every state. Although he was still alive when the Loving case finally ended all laws against miscegenation, King did not participate in that fight. He was fighting to end segregation in housing in the North as well as the South and against poverty everywhere in 1967.
One of the most important differences between the civil rights activists of the fifties and sixties and the METOO whiners is the refusal of the activists to demonize the white racists who tormented them. As I tweeted to the somewhat unhinged Rose McGowan, Reverend King and Rosa Parks never called any of the bigots they were battling "monsters," a name she repeatedly uses to describe Harvey Weinstein. I had not read Lewis's book at that point and did not realize that one of King's rules of engagement was that the activists must fight social injustice, not individuals. Their fight was not personal. Although he was at times angry and disgusted, I don't recall Lewis expressing hatred toward the white men who beat him. He seems to understand that they too were victims of the racist Jim Crow system into which they were all born. He certainly understood how difficult it is for all of us to deal with change.
The civil rights movement was about uplifting the oppressed, not destroying the oppressors. Even when Lewis and other activists were beaten and tormented in public, and those attacks were seen on television, the people who beat them did not go to jail; usually, the victims of the beatings did. In fact, most of the physical assaulters of the civil rights activists were police officers. Even after we all understood that what those officers did was wrong and unlawful (and many understood that point at the time), none of them went to jail. The only criminals who were pursued in court and in the media by civil rights activists were those who actually killed people, like the murderer of Medgar Evers, who finally went to jail in the nineties. Because of the way the civil rights activists behaved, their oppressors could sometimes reform and make peace with them. Perhaps the most prominent example is the late Democratic senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd. He was once in the Ku Klux Klan and fought hard against the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in the mid-sixties, but in 2008, he supported half-black President Barack Obama, and one of his last acts before he died was to shout, "Shame!" "Shame!" to the racist, obstructionist GOP senators as he was being wheeled into the Senate chamber in early 2010 to cast one last vote supporting the healthcare bill.
Contrast the almost saintly, loving behavior of Lewis and the other civil rights activists to the vicious spitefulness and bullying of the METOO witch hunters. They celebrate the destruction of powerful men. They get off on sending an eighty-one year old, blind, black man to jail and causing other powerful men to lose their jobs and have their reputations destroyed. I recently had to change the channel when watching "Black Girls Rock." The originally unknown black woman (I still can't remember her name because she is clearly not the leader of this movement; blonde, white male Ronan Farrow and brunette, white female Gloria Allred, among others, are) whose movement the media and celebrities co-opted in part so they could lock up Cosby for having freaky sex with white women (the late Dick Gregory had some other theories in the book I just read, but I'm sticking with mine) was given an award at the event. In introducing her, the presenter bragged that she had taken down really powerful men. Hey, I can be spiteful, especially when dealing with white men (ask the two white male lawyers who recently tried to play me), but I know that destroying people, costing them their careers and their reputation, is not a positive trait. Why would a movement celebrate personal destruction? Why wouldn't they want to focus on the women who have been protected and the men who have been educated and reformed rather than how many powerful men have been destroyed? I'm spiteful enough to look forward to the time when the leaders of this movement will (hopefully) feel ashamed that they behaved so badly in 2017 and 18.
That shame may never come, however, because of the media's involvement. When a movement is generated by the media, it has the protection that civil rights activists never had. One of the most dangerous characteristics of this movement is the refusal of the media to criticize the behavior of the activists, which leads to fear among those critics (and they are rare) who are smart enough to know that the media can destroy them. Comedian Bill Maher, who was bold enough to be politically incorrect right after 9/11 (causing him to lose his job as the host of an ABC show ironically called "Politically Incorrect"), always genuflects to the witch hunters before he criticizes them. He always says that he believes women should be heard and is against rapists, blah, blah, blah. A friend of mine (a white mother of mixed race sons) who was helping me take on some METOO supporters on Facebook had to begin one comment with the apologetic statement, "I'm not blaming the victims." Why not? The civil rights beating victims were thrown in jail and blamed for causing trouble; they were called Communists and outside agitators. You want to talk about blaming victims, read about the young black boys (one of them twelve) who were killed by cops or wannabe cops. And read or watch the media coverage of the BlackLivesMatter movement, a slightly less saintly, modern version of the civil rights movement, that rose up in response to the killings by cops of unarmed, mostly young black males.
The primary difference between the civil rights activists and the METOO whiners is in the character of the participants. To paraphrase Trump, I like my heroes to be brave and noble. I don't like cowards, whiners, and demonizers. The civil rights activists were not cowards. They were willing not only to lose their careers for their cause but to die for it. Dr. Ford is the latest METOO "hero" who wanted to attack someone else's good name without exposing her own. She wanted to tell her story but remain anonymous because she didn't want her comfortable life disrupted. The only differences between her and one of my least favorite people (I like her more than I do Trump, Allred, Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and Judges Thomas and Kavanaugh), that drunk whiner Emily Doe, are that she's better educated (so far) and apparently not a sloppy drunk. If Dr. Ford couldn't stand the heat, she should never have entered the kitchen.
I could never have been a civil rights activist. I'm not physically violent, but I believe in hitting back verbally when I'm attacked. I could never be beaten, called names, and jailed while remaining quiet or singing "We Shall Overcome." I admire and thank John Lewis and all of the many unknown heroes who took the beatings and went to jail so that I could vote and live a little freer. I'm proud to say that I also could never be a METOO, whining witch hunter. I think too clearly and am too much of a lone ranger (without Tonto) and a Mary, Mary, quite contrarian to join a lynch mob. I'm also "brave" and contrary enough to take on the witch hunters now when it's unpopular to do so. Of course, unlike the Democrats, I know how to use the weapons I have. As a black woman from the working class who was pawed by white men and witnessed the effects of a brutal rape (not sexual assault or harassment, pussies, but rape), I can take these whiners down. My biggest weapon is this one: Black women voted for the sane white woman while white women voted for the insane white man. If white women had voted the way black women did, Hillary Clinton would be selecting the judges, and the world leaders of the UN would not be laughing at us.
METOO whiners, there are children in cages because white women voted for an insane sexual assaulter to stop the browning of America. Until you white women figure out how to vote, sit down, shut up, fall back, move to the back of the bus, and let the black women, who know how to vote, drive. And, oh, tell your daughters to prepare for the backlash that your vicious, destructive movement will cause in the not so distant future. Finally, if you're feeling oppressed, if you think your life has been difficult because some powerful, predatory men told you nasty jokes or looked at your boobs or under your dress, read WALKING WITH THE WIND.
